Startup Grind

Simon describes himself as an entrepreneur, investor, and part-time coder. Working primarily within the IT sector, he has a track record of starting, acquiring and growing organizations.

An Electrical Engineering graduate from Imperial College, London, he started his career with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Three years later, Simon joined a start-up which went on to IPO in the mid-90s. Soon after Simon opened offices for the newly listed company in Malaysia and Singapore, growing the business to over 100 staff and $12m in revenue within 5 years.

He was then handed the challenge of running a post dot.com business in the US. Rather than let the business fail, Simon led an MBO, and sold the new venture 18 months later. Under the new ownership, as COO he grew the business to over $200m in revenue. More recently, Simon was responsible for the acquisition of an HR Tech business and integration into a U.K. parent company.

Simon now works as an Angel Investor where he has made investments in over 20 companies. He also has taken a number of hands-on operational roles (as COO, CFO, and CTO) in his portfolio companies.